The Dysfunction Of Evan: Books 1-3 Collection

75. A Career Proposal

I opened the front door with Boyd on my hip to find Taylor standing with a bottle of wine and a box of chocolate. I smiled and stepped back to let her in. She smiled and cooed over Boyd as I lead her to the living room.

"Wow." She said looking around. "Other than all the baby stuff, it hasn't really changed."

"Yeah, its like a time capsule." I commented. "I'll go grab some glasses, have a seat."

"I'll take Boyd." She offered holding her arms out. I looked at Boyd and pointed to her.

"Do you want to see Taylor?" I asked him. He looked at Taylor then pressed his face to my shoulder. "He'll warm up to you, he's pretty good with new people."

"No worries." She smiled, taking a seat on the couch.

I went to the kitchen and grabbed two of the plastic wine glasses I'd bought when I was still pregnant. Tom had frowned at my insistance that we subsitiute all the dishes for plastic ones, but I had the last laugh a couple weeks ago when Lucy managed to push his plate off the coffee table.

I returned to the living room and sat on the floor and put Boyd down next to me. He just looked at Taylor with big eyes. I set the wine glasses on the coffee table and nudged one towards Taylor, then picked up the box of chocolates and inspected them. They were chocolate covered cherries, my favorite.

Taylor filled both glasses with the wine, which was a pink mascato, then took a sip of hers and leaned back, telling me to help myself to the chocolate. I wasted no time in taking the cellophane off and popped one into my mouth. Boyd reached for the box and I plucked another candy from the box and bit it in half, then offered him the part I hadn't had in my mouth. He squealed in delight.

"I think we have a winner." I laughed. Boyd demanded another one, but I distracted him with one of his favorite toys. I looked to Taylor. "So, what's up?"

"I thought maybe you could use some adult company, wine and some chocolate." She smiled.

"Well, yeah. What mother can't?" I laughed. "I wasn't sure if there was anything else."

"I won't lie, there is." She leaned forward and popped a chocolate in her mouth. "I heard you've been offered a few record deals."

"Yeah, I'm just kinda sitting on them. I have three, and while they all seem pretty good, I'd be singing songs other people wrote about things that have nothing to with me." I said taking a sip of wine. "I'm not sure I want that. If I'm going to sing someone elses songs, I'd rather they be ones that have some kind of meaning to me."

"I feel that on a level you wouldn't understand." She said. "Like, you have no idea how relevant that is to me."

"I might have more of an idea than you think. I didn't always think you were an awful person."

"Do you still think that?" She asked.

"No." I said. "And it has nothing to do with the club incident. Tom's kinda talked me off my soapbox about hating you. He pointed out that you and I have both made some of the same mistakes, and we've both been painted in the same light. He reminded me that the only difference was that you are famous and I was not."

"That's true, for sure." She said. "Fame adds a level of judgement that the mass majority doesn't realize they have, and it tends to make normal things seem extravagant."

"I used to hate you because everyone called me a walking Taylor Swift album. It really stung, and it still does sometimes." I admitted. "But, I realize now that I wasn't really mad at you; how could I be? You didn't know who I was, you didn't know that we had so much in common. You didn't write the songs about me. I was mad at the people who compared us and made me feel like I was inferior because I was so much like you, and somehow that was a bad thing."